


Paradise

by irusu_u3



Series: Ways to Live [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, One Shot, Post-TSoT, Road Trips, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25326811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irusu_u3/pseuds/irusu_u3
Summary: Set after the events of The Streets of Tokyo, it follows Semi and Shirabu on their journey away from Tokyo and their past, to find a place to live out their days.
Relationships: Semi Eita/Shirabu Kenjirou
Series: Ways to Live [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775488
Comments: 5
Kudos: 76





	Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> You absolutely have to have read The Streets of Tokyo, the first installment, before reading this oneshot!  
> Though I'm assuming most of y'all have --
> 
> Anyway, I did not forget about my promise to write some one shots!
> 
> This is, again, set after the events of TSOT.
> 
> I loved writing this, so I hope you'll enjoy <3

The fence was sturdy, but when Semi Eita’s curiosity grew high enough to attempt to get inside a mysterious place, he would stubbornly try to find a way inside no matter what.  
For some reason, he always did, too.  
He always managed to find a way inside, and Shirabu tended to write it off as a typical, weird Semi-thing.

Semi’s fluffed up, dirty hair peeked over the edge, followed by a triumphant grin.  
“Got it. Easy, Shirabu, come on.”

Shirabu gave one more glance to their horse, Spring.  
He’d tied her reins safely to the fence, and she was currently busy grazing the weeds at her hooves.

He didn’t like leaving the animal behind, as he’d grown quite attached to her and she was their primary source of fast traveling and easy distancing through landscapes.

Leaning over the edge of the flat-roofed ticket booth, Semi held out his hand to his partner down at the ground, who stared up at him grumpily, not as amused with this sudden expedition into completely unknown territory.

The two had been following an overgrown path through yet another forest, like so many they passed through before.  
Shades of green and yellow lit up the way, filtered through the leaves of many ancient trees.  
Thick layers of moss covered the ground, and thin streams of water fell like mini-waterfalls into the pits of age old roots.

This forest, though, was truly ancient.  
In comparison to past woods, this forest seemed older, having survived the many, many years through the End of the World.

With a exasperated sigh, Shirabu clamped his hand around Semi’s, and used the wall in front of him to bounce off of, when Semi pulled him up onto the booth.  
The fences had been too risky to try and climb over, as its rusty, sharp ends could easily cut open their skin and poison their blood.

Instead, Semi’s nimble body found a way up the one break in between fencing, and it made for a safe passage to whatever was beyond.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shirabu asked, finding his footing on top of a crate, before jumping down to the other side, following Semi.

“Not at all,” the other replied, a lingering sense of carefreeness in the tone of his voice.  
“Maybe we’ll find a dinosaur.”

“A dinosaur,” Shirabu repeated, “Even though I clearly remembering you telling me so many times before that they lived millions of years ago. . . at the time that book was written.”

“Don’t spoil the fun, Kenji.”

Finally taking a good look around, Shirabu didn’t know what to make of what he saw before him.

Paved paths were leading towards different constructions, wilted and overgrown with wildlife, but clearly still there.  
Abandoned.  
The colors may be vague and dusty now, but were vibrant in the past.

Leaves dusted the pathways, and a tree had sprouted right through the tentacles of some kind of animal, various small trolleys attached to its outer ends.  
He guessed people used to be able to go inside those trolleys, and maybe the animal construction would move.

He saw Semi picking up a paper from the ground, trying to make out what it talked about.

“Amuse. . . ment. . . park?” he questioned, frowning, confused.  
“Amusement park. Do you think that’s where we are?”

“I don’t see how the ugly mug of that animal -- thing, whatever, is amusing,” Shirabu mumbled, an uncomfortable shiver traveling up his spine when he looked back at the tentacle monster attraction.  
He found its big, cartoony round eyes creepy enough as it, but it didn’t help that he expected the tentacles to suddenly spring to life and grab them.

Walkers were already enough to deal with, they didn’t need any new dangers in their lives.

“You know,” Semi started, as the two followed one of the pathways, circling a dried up fountain, “I can almost hear the crowds of people. I can almost see them walking with children in tow, hand in hand, laughing. . .”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Shirabu nodded slowly, “What happened that made people leave these places behind. . . ?”

They stopped at a row of shops to the side, smeared glass windows showing dark displays of a few ripped plushies and broken toys, but it was mostly eerily empty.  
The sign with the shop’s name was hanging off its hinges, letters completely washed away and unintelligible.

In the distance, far away, there’s this gigantic circular structure, a ferris wheel, peeking out above the trees.

The previous gentle calm of rushing water inside the forest was replaced with silence.  
There were no birds chirping, no tiny animals scavenging around or Walkers in sight.

“Wouldn’t people notice in time when Walkers started, you know, killing? Did they not have any protection or safety measures in case of disasters?”

“If they have time to build an amusement park, I doubt they were concerned with life-threatening problems as long as it doesn’t reach the higher forces of that time,” Shirabu stated.  
“It makes sense, but it’s really. . . superficial and dumb.”

“Right,” Semi agreed, “In the same way Shiratorizawa and the other groups are like in regards to hierarchy and importance of individual persons, it is most likely close to how the world worked in the past.”

They passed a carousel, with bleak, ugly horses attached to poles with missing tails or shattered hooves.  
The poles had golden paint peeling off, faintly reflecting the sunlight.

“Exactly, since we hold leaders in higher regard than ourselves, usually,” Shirabu said, “We held Ushijima up as someone who could safely lead us through life in this world, but then he fell apart, and as a result, we stopped believing in him.”

Shirabu sometimes wondered what the state of the world was like right after their humans safe haven turned into a hell.

Was it a gradual build up to a point that when people started taking the phenomena seriously, it was already too late?  
Were Walkers the first sign of doom?  
Were Walkers caused by something human?

 _Probably_ , Shirabu mentally scoffed, _They probably thought to use Walkers for their own gain, only for it to escape their grasps and control._

“Kenjirou.”

Shirabu looked up at Semi, following his sorrowful gaze.

In the distance, wandering between the rows of merchandise shops, were Walkers.  
Very small Walkers.

Children.

Thin limbs, dragging their bodies along, aimlessly.  
Their dried up, grey skin stuck to their bones.  
Yet, the most heart wrenching thing to Semi was the clothes they were wearing.

Bloody, dirty, flower-patterned dresses, bows lopsided on their skulls and glossy shoes.  
A few of the males wore streaked shirts or flimsy hats.

Semi swallowed.

“They were left behind.”

Shirabu opened his mouth, trying to think of another reason why only little children were wandering the amusement part, with no adult Walkers in sight.  
He let his lips fall shut again, as he couldn’t.

Because Semi was right.

“What the fuck,” Shirabu whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.  
He’s never been fond of children, but this knowledge was a strong attack on his faith in the past humanity, a faith that wasn’t all that high up anymore to begin with.  
_“Fuck.”_

“They left them,” Semi repeated, voice trembling slightly, almost unnoticeable, but Shirabu could tell.  
“Who would do that?”

“I don’t -- I don’t know. Bad parents.”

That elicited a tiny snort from Semi, but the entire sight and implications were just too incredibly sad.

“We should kill them.”

Shirabu squinted his eyes, and rose an eyebrow at him.  
He studied Semi’s expression, so determined and righteously angered.

Wordlessly, he removed his backpack and set it down onto the ground, rummaging through.  
“Fine,” he said, “But once they’re set ablaze, we’re leaving immediately.”

“Sure,” Semi murmured, “Not like I’d feel like hanging around any longer after seeing this literal embodiment of human selfishness.”

Pressing thumb and forefinger against his tongue, he whistled, the shrill noise bouncing between the rows of buildings.  
The tiny Walkers insteadly turned their heads, and started trudging toward the two humans.

Semi hoped they’d stay huddled together, because they really only had a limited supply of molotov cocktails, and easily flammable rope wasn’t as easy to come by as one would think.

“Maybe they were left behind for their own safety,” Shirabu miserably tried, but since he couldn’t even convince himself, he doubted Semi did.

He handed the green-ish and see-through bottle to Semi, who quickly checked if the medical plaster would hold the thin string of rope in place.  
He took the lighter as well, and held it ready.

When the group of Walker children were close enough, their soft moans and groans in earshot, Semi lit the molotov cocktail and aimed for the middle of the small group.  
It shattered, _thank god_ , and the fire that sprung to life after enveloped all of the Walkers.

With a last, pitiful glance, Semi turned around, taking Shirabu’s hand in his.

Neither said a word, not even when the painful cries of the Walkers died down, presumably burned and charred to second death.

To vent some of his frustration, Shirabu glared at the octopus attraction and flipped it off, cursing the entire amusement park under his breath.

Their horse, Spring, seemed excited enough to see the two again.  
Semi unwrapped the tethered reins, holding her steady as Shirabu launched himself into the painfully worn saddle.

Semi soon handed the reins to him and joined him, settling behind Shirabu.  
The latter didn’t hesitate to steer Spring away from the amusement park, the ticket booth and the rusty fence, back to the path they were originally following.

After many minutes, Shirabu only had one thing to say.  
“I’m glad your dumbass wanted to check out the amusement park.”

Semi’s hair tickled his neck and shoulders, as the taller man buried his head into his lover’s back.  
“We did a good thing.”

“You’re right.”

They settled on the edge of the forest for the night.  
Shirabu found the largest tree to known to mankind, with something akin to a naturally formed cave formed between its roots, and they both rated it among the top 5 best camps.

The warmth of their fire radiates off the wood and provided a much better, useful shelter.  
Spring was content staying on the grass patch, looking over her two humans.

Shirabu shamelessly leeched off of Semi’s body heat, letting the latter do all the work regarding roasting the meat and keeping the fire lit, while he himself snugly fit in his arms.

Early on in their journey, after leaving their previous home, a ruined Tokyo, behind, they diverged sharply from the path of Walker herds.

They were caught unaware a few times by stray undead, but they’ve both gotten better at detecting small details and changes in the landscape that could provide a guess on how many Walkers they could expect.

An example is that Walkers naturally gravitate to human-made structures.  
They find them concentrated in the big cities -- which they quickly learned to avoid like the plague -- while finding stragglers and loners in the wild.  
Semi suggested it’s because a Walker’s brain still resembles a human’s, and that it plays on a human’s instinct for basic survival needs to look for abnormalities that suggest life.

Shirabu recounted the day he saw the most fearful expression on Semi’s slim, pale face to date.  
He himself hadn’t been off much better, but he couldn’t imagine what went through Semi’s head before Shirabu could reassure him.

The day Shirabu limped back to their camp with a clean bite mark into his calf, bleeding profusely.  
He saw so many emotions and thoughts in Semi’s eyes at once, when he stood frozen in shock, like a whirlwind daunting on the edge of spiraling out of control.

Shirabu had been reckless, or naive, even.  
Some kind of dog -- _wolf_ \-- jumped at him, throwing him off and catching him off-guard, and Shirabu remembered just feeling really thankful that the animal didn’t seem to be part of a pack.

Kicking it off, he only kicked it far enough away for the beast to reach his foot, gnawing with powerful jaws into his reinforced shoe before realizing it didn’t seem to be doing any real damage.  
It went for the next best thing, and that was Shirabu’s exposed leg.

In the end, Shirabu hadn’t even managed to kill it.  
He dealt it a blow to its stomach, but the wound wasn’t deadly.  
Painful enough to get it to back off though, and so Shirabu took that chance to limp back to camp, to Semi, biting his tongue to prevent himself from screaming.

He _knew_ Semi thought it’d been a Walker bite.  
He liked to deny it when Shirabu asked him about it, later, but the devastating pain and flash of misplaced realisation he’d seen in Semi’s eyes that day never left his mind.

It was Semi who came back the next day dragging the wolf’s corpse along.  
Two arrows had downed the beast.

After the initial shock, he’d been clever enough to realise that a wolf wouldn’t leave a wounded prey alone, especially since there was a blood trail leading straight to their camp.

So, he’d climbed a tree nearby camp with his bow and arrow, and waiting all night for the animal to make its next move.  
And it did.  
And it paid with its life.

With it came enough meat for a week.

Yet neither looked back on the experience as lucky or happy.

Just as a “ almost lost my partner forever ” one.

Tracing the whitened scars absentmindedly, Shirabu burrowed himself closer, curling into Semi.  
It was at night when he felt most at ease, despite the shroud of darkness surrounding them.

If only they left Shiratorizawa years ago.

Ironic, since Ushijima’s way of inviting new members has always been a straight-forward “ You should join Shiratorizawa ”, and Shirabu had been so proud of himself back then, but now --  
Now he realised how much he didn’t actually care about the group’s company.

It’s a shame, really.

Knowing they could’ve had this life much earlier.

Then again, things would’ve been different, and maybe in that alternate timeline where they did leave years before, Akaashi would’ve ended up dead.  
Or, even worse -- if they’d decided to leave Akaashi behind in the isolation cell.

Did Shirabu miss Tokyo or Shiratorizawa?

No, not really.

He did wish he could’ve spent more time with all his past group mates and friends on different terms.  
In a world that wasn’t ruined.  
Where they could actually all go to an amusement park, with no Walkers.

But Shirabu didn’t like wondering about the past or about things that could never be true.  
He preferred the future he currently owned with Semi.

The next day, they finally exited the forest for real.

Spring seemed to be happy with it as well, as the streets of the little town down the hill were much easier to run and walk over with her hooves, and much less treacherous.

There was something else that had caught their attention last night, though.

Water, as far as the horizon stretched.  
They watched the sun rise from behind the blue, greeting them with pink and orange hues in the sky.

“This is it, then,” Semi mumbled, caught in awe.  
He wasn’t necessarily sad, but the sight of the ever stretching sea did have a sense of finality to it.  
“There’s nowhere else to go.”

There were tall mountains on the other side, but neither would ever willingly try their luck crossing it.

Shirabu swallowed, nodding, as he pulled back the reins to gaze as well.

He thought he’d feel down.  
They travelled so many miles, through cities and towns and forest, through rivers and the most horrible weathers.

Yet, something more akin to a defeated, elated smile made its way onto his lips, and Shirabu let go of the anxious breath he’d been holding.

“Yeah,” he said, “This is it. What do you think?”

“I think,” Semi hummed, “That we might want to consider settling here, for real.”

“And I think you’re right.”

Semi pressed a kiss behind Shirabu’s ear, his breathy laugh tickling his skin.  
“One of those houses right at the beach.”

Shirabu nodded wordlessly, his heart thumping in excitement at the prospect of, despite giving up on traveling around, settling and living his life with Semi, and without the uncertainties of the past.

“We can hunt in these forests,” Semi continued, “And that river we passed last evening must be coming from those mountains, so no salt like that one time -- ”

“Don’t remind me, you ass.”  
Shirabu scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue in disgust at the memory, shaking his head.

Before Semi could get another teasing word in, he tightly held onto the reins and Spring started to gallop across the asphalt street.

They kept an eye out for any signs of human activity, a thing they were afraid of early on in their journey, but soon found out that humans are practically nonexistent.  
He truly wondered how many people were alive on this world, besides the groups in Tokyo.

Shirabu diverted from the main street through the little town, past the gas station, and into a more sandy path that lead directly to the beach.

Spring bravely conquered the dunes, and soon she relished into the warm sand, though slowing down due to the unevenness.  
She was happier closer to the sea, he dirty white manes flowing in the wind as Shirabu urged her closer, where the sand constantly remained wet and sturdier.

“Let’s stay here,” Shirabu said, now fully convinced.

They watched as the waves rolled in, bringing foam with them and leaving a wet patch behind in the sand, before retreating back into the ocean.

They saw a few screeching birds flying in the sky, which they hadn’t ever seen before, and if they continued their mocking calls, Semi threatened he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot one or two down.

In the distance, Shirabu noticed a red structure reflecting in the sun further inside the sea.  
He squinted at it, but decided to check out what it was on a later date.

Not now.

They had all the time in the world, they didn’t have to worry anymore.

Soon, both males had removed their shoes and socks, and Shirabu was the first one to try stepping into the sea.  
Only for a little bit -- he couldn’t see the bottom a few meters further, and he didn’t like the unknown.

He loved the cool water between his toes, washing off sweat and dirt, and above all, it was a very nice feeling against his old blisters.

Semi walked along a meter further inland with his heels dug into the sand, holding Spring and leading her along.

Shirabu could get used to this, he really could.  
Though wandering the wilderness was fun in its own right, it was also an unsure ordeal, and much more dangerous than settling down into an abandoned town on the outstretch of their world.

Shirabu joined Semi, and snatched his free hand in his own.

“This is what I want,” he concluded, staring right into those safe, familiar chocolate eyes.  
“What about you?”

Semi just cast him a lazy smile, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth.

“Me too. Let’s check out those beach houses later today. We’ll start scavenging the rest of the town tomorrow.”

“We finally found it, _Eita_.”

They paused in their tracks once more, to turn towards the sun and the sea.

Truly, Semi agreed.  
This was it.  
They could spend the rest of their lives here, in peace.

“Our paradise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points if you realised the " red structure " mentioned was the famous Itsukushima shrine.  
> Knowing that you will do the quick maths and find out that since TSOT, these two have travelled over 800+ kilometres.
> 
> Follow and chat with me on Instagram [@irusu.u3](https://www.instagram.com/irusu.u3/) or on Twitter [@irusu_u3](https://twitter.com/irusu_u3) where I also do art!  
> If you have any prompts or AUs you'd like for me to consider writing, this is how you can reach me!


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